Shoes is an American power pop band, formed in Zion, Illinois, in 1974 by brothers John and Jeff Murphy, and Gary Klebe and incorporating several different drummers including Skip Meyer, Barry Shumaker, Ric Menck, John Richardson, and Jeff Hunter.

Shoes formed their own record label, Black Vinyl Records, and owned and operated their own commercial recording studio (Short Order Recorder) from 1983 to 2004. Many artists recorded at the studio and some went on to sign major label recording contracts, including Local H and Material Issue.

Contents

History

1970s

The Murphy brothers and Klebe were high school friends and decided to form a band following graduation. At the time none of the members knew how to play an instrument so each member picked an instrument to learn and promised to reunite within one year. Within the first year the three got back together to rehearse and eventually record their first album.

In 1977 Shoes recorded the album Black Vinyl Shoes in Jeff Murphy's living room and pressed 1,000 copies on their own label, Black Vinyl Records. The album was sold at local record stores and by mail order through Bomp! magazine. Shoes then released a single "Tomorrow Night" on Bomp! Records in June 1978. Soon after that Black Vinyl Shoes was licensed to PVC Records which released the album in November 1978. The group signed to Elektra Records in April 1979 and released their first major label album, Present Tense, that September. The album peaked at number 50 on the Billboard 200 and yielded the minor hit single "Too Late" which reached number 75 on the Billboard Hot 100.[1]

1980s and 1990s

When MTV went on the air on August 1, 1981, the channel aired four of Shoes' videos: "Too Late", "Tomorrow Night", "Cruel You" and "In My Arms Again", making Shoes one of the first bands to be shown on MTV.[2]

The band went on to do three more videos: "In Her Shadow" (1982), "When Push Comes To Shove"(1985) and "Feel The Way That I Do" (1991).

2000s

The Shoes song Your Very Eyes was covered by Jeffrey Foskett on his 2000 album Twelve and Twelve.

In early 2007, the band released a double CD titled Double Exposure, which contains demos of their songs from the albums Present Tense and Tongue Twister. In the same time frame, Jeff Murphy published a book entitled, "Birth of a Band, The Record Deal and the Recording of Present Tense" which documents the band's inception, major label signing and subsequent recording of their first internationally distributed album, Present Tense. In January 2007 Jeff released a solo album titled Cantilever.

2010s

In January 2011 Shoes got together in the studio with drummer John Richardson to lay down rhythm tracks for a new batch of Shoes songs. Over the next 14 months recording continued on what would become their first studio album of new material in over 17 years. Released in mid-2012, "Ignition" adds to a career that spans more than 4 decades, giving the band the milestone of releasing music in each of the decades 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.[3][4][5]

Name

Some have inaccurately stated that the group's name originated from an interview the Beatles granted on their first American tour in February, 1964. However, as noted in Boys Don’t Lie: A History of Shoes by Mary E. Donnelly (New York college professor and managing editor of PurePopPress.com) with Moira McCormick in interviewing John Murphy:

Much ink has been spilled debating the meaning of the band's name. John absolutely insists that he was unaware of a CBS News interview from February 10, 1964, in which John Lennon, dismissing a similar question about their moniker, quipped, "It means Beatles, doesn't it? But that's just a name, you know, like 'shoe'." Paul McCartney immediately chimed in, "The Shoes, you see? We could have been called the Shoes for all you know." But if the band's name was intended to be an intentional evocation of that moment, there would certainly have been a "The," which there isn't. Asked why, John says, "I guess Shoes just sounded right... like 'look at those cool shoes' or 'where are my shoes?' ... it was like Sparks or Wings or Faces or even Big Star... The first time we heard the 'the' was from a writer...we winced and corrected him. 'No, no…it's just Shoes.' ... 'The Shoes' just rubbed us wrong.[7][citation needed]

Discography

Albums

Year

Title

Label

Notes

1974/5

Heads or Tails

private release

Limited 4 copies - acetate LP

1976

One in Versailles

private release

LP

1976

Bazooka

private release

Cass

1977

Black Vinyl Shoes

Black VinylPVCSire (UK)Black Vinyl (BV10092)

LP

1979

Present Tense

Elektra

LP, Cass

1980

Tongue Twister

Elektra

LP, Cass

1982

Boomerang

Elektra

LP, Cass

1984

Silhouette

New Rose (France)Demon (England)Line (Germany)Black Vinyl (BV15191)

LP, Cass

1987

Shoes Best

Black Vinyl (BV19787)

CD

1988

Present Tense / Tongue Twister

Black Vinyl (BV19888)

CD, Cass. Re-issue

1989

Stolen Wishes

Black Vinyl (BV10189)New Rose (France)VC (Japan)

CD, LP

1990

Boomerang / Shoes on Ice

Black Vinyl (BV18190)

CD Re-issue

1994

Propeller

Black Vinyl (BV10294)

CD

1995

Fret Buzz (live)

Black Vinyl (BV10495)

CD

1997

As-Is

Black Vinyl (BV10596)

Double CD (re-issue of "One In Versailles", "Bazooka" and other rarities

2007

Cantilever

Black Vinyl (BV10101)

Jeff Murphy solo CD

2007

Double Exposure

Black Vinyl (BV11979)

Double CD

2012

Ignition

Black Vinyl (BV16112-2)

CD, MP3 (First all-new album in 18 years)

2015

Primal Vinyl

Alive Naturalsound Records (Alive0170-1)

Star-burst colored Vinyl LP (12-song compilation includes early demos and unreleased live track from 2013 tour)